Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.

The Ibsen Collection (Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House, An Enemy of the People) - Audible Classic Theatre: An Audible Original Drama

This collection of three of Ibsen's plays is voiced by a sparkling cast and features music, SFX and a full soundscape. Hedda Gabler is a poignant study of loneliness, impotent rage and societal expectations breeding a certain kind of madness, An Enemy of the People is a true classic and a play for our modern times in equal measure and A Doll's House presents a fascinating before-its-time window onto a world where expectations of women were streets apart from the contemporary world.

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age

Claude Shannon was a tinkerer, a playful wunderkind, a groundbreaking polymath, and a digital pioneer whose insights made the Information Age possible. He constructed fire-breathing trumpets and customized unicycles, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots, but he also wrote the seminal text of the Digital Revolution. That work allowed scientists to measure and manipulate information as objectively as any physical object. His work gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.

The Metamorphosis: A New Translation by Susan Bernofsky

Franz Kafka's 1915 novella of unexplained horror and nightmarish transformation became a worldwide classic and remains a century later one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. It is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. This hugely influential work inspired George Orwell, Albert Camus, Jorge Louis Borges, and Ray Bradbury, while continuing to unsettle millions of readers.

Notes from the Underground

A predecessor to such monumental works such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Notes From Underground represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky's writing towards the more political side.

In this work, we follow the unnamed narrator of the story, who, disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives, withdraws from that society into the underground.

The Stranger

Albert Camus' The Stranger is one of the most widely read novels in the world, with millions of copies sold. It stands as perhaps the greatest existentialist tale ever conceived, and is certainly one of the most important and influential books ever produced. Now, for the first time, this revered masterpiece is available as an unabridged audio production.

Moll Flanders

"The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continue'd variety for three-score years, besides her childhood, was twelve year a whore, five times a wife (whereof once to her own brother), twelve year a thief, eight year a transported felon in Virginia at last grew rich, liv'd honest, and died a penitent."

The Oresteia

In The Oresteia, Aeschylus dramatizes the myth of the curse on the royal house of Argos. The action begins when King Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War, only to be treacherously slain by his own wife. It ends with the trial of their son, Orestes, who slew his mother to avenge her treachery - a trial with the goddess Athena as judge, the god Apollo as defense attorney, and, as prosecutors, relentless avenging demons called The Furies.

Play It As It Lays

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It As It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the listener.

The Aeneid

The publication of a new translation by Fagles is a literary event. His translations of both the Iliad and Odyssey have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have become the standard translations of our era. Now, with this stunning modern verse translation, Fagles has reintroduced Virgil's Aeneid to a whole new generation, and completed the classical triptych at the heart of Western civilization.

The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European

Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.

Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C. - A.D. 17) has, over the centuries, been the most popular and influential work from our classical tradition. This extraordinary collection of some 250 Greek and Roman myths and folk tales has always been a popular favorite, and has decisively shaped western art and literature from the moment it was completed in A.D. 8. The stories are particularly vivid when read by David Horovitch, in this new lively verse translation by Ian Johnston.

Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth

Here is the dramatic story of young, docile Emil Sinclair's descent - led by precocious schoolmate Max Demian - into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention and eventual awakening to selfhood.

Measure for Measure: The Arkangel Shakespeare

Telling his followers he is leaving the city on affairs of state, the Duke of Vienna appoints the puritanical Angelo to govern in his absence. Will Angelo prove as virtuous as he seems once power is in his hands? Roaming the city disguised as a friar, the duke looks on as Angelo's lust for the virtuous Isabella sweeps him into the corruption he has so sternly condemned in others. The duke's manipulation at last produces a happy ending for this dark comedy, with its brilliant exploration of the themes of justice and mercy.

How It Is

How It Is, a landmark in 20th century literature, is one of the most challenging of Samuel Beckett's early novels. He published it first in French in 1961 and then in his own translation in 1964. He explained in a letter that it was the outpouring of a "'man' lying panting in the mud and dark murmuring his 'life' as he hears it obscurely uttered by a voice inside him.... The noise of his panting fills his ears and it is only when this abates that he can catch and murmur forth a fragment of what is being stated within...."

Austerlitz

Austerlitz, the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by "one of the most gripping writers imaginable" (The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man's search for the answer to his life's central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him.

Faust

The two-part poem Faust tells the beautifully emotional story of a man who has seen and done it all. However, despite all of his learning and education, his life still feels empty and unaccomplished. He believes wholeheartedly that there is something else out there. Faust, having exhausted all other fields of study, turns to magic for fulfillment. He summons the devil and makes a pact - that if the devil can show him something rewarding and fulfilling, he will give the devil his soul.

Publisher's Summary

Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.

In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity."

This long short story is one of the greatest ever written. While not really modernist in the sense of Woolf, Faulkner, etc, I found myself in a 'symbolic' state of dreamy, beautiful imagery & thought the whole way. This is a journey near the end of a basically proper classic intellectual European life that turns into a quest for the nectar of the gods at a distance. Lolita is clearly prefigured here. You will think of Durrell and Nabokov and so many others who must follow and the myths and so many who are encompassed. I felt like Death in Venice was one of those works that will stay in my mind the rest of my life.

"Death" in Venice" can be enjoyed on several levels. I continue to enjoy it, time and time again, if only for the sheer beauty of Mann's writing. He is the Mozart of the written word; there are no unnecessary or discordant notes. This new translation is so superb as to be beyond criticism. We simply need more like it.

My interests run to psychology, popular science, history, world literature, and occasionally something fun like Jasper Fforde. It seems like the only free time I have for reading these days is when I'm in the car so I am extremely grateful for audio books. I started off reading just the contemporary stuff that I was determined not to clutter up my already stuffed bookcases with. And now audio is probably 90% of my "reading" matter.

maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. I know this is one of the giants of modern literature, the prose is brilliant, the exposition is brilliant, the one and only real character is brilliantly detailed and nuanced, but the subject just didn't resonate with me. OK, so it's the biggest most important subject in the world. Yes, I agree with that. It is also, within the boundaries of this book, a very tiny exploration of a specific perspective on that subject. Maybe audio just isn't the right medium for a first trip through this book. It's the kind of book that requires you to just stop and savor each thing the author says.

The descent into lust, madness, obsession and degradation is one of literature's most dramatic scenes. The master artist Aschenbach, restrained, honored, and successful debases himself in a pursuit of beauty. That it is forbidden love makes the debasement more horrifying and sickening. There is always a combination of gorgeousness with absolute ugliness and horror.

What about Simon Callow’s performance did you like?

This is a restrained, refined performance.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The end is one of those passagese in literature that you read and re-read. Though it's inevitable, it still is shocking.

This incredible novellette was written as if the words were directly extracted from Aschenbach's mind....amazing writing. The story told elegantly but with incredible power and passion.....amazing storytelling. The forward equally as fascinating....

I listened to this audiobook because Death in Venice was listed in classic lit of the 20th century. It was beautifully written but CREEPY! The entire story is the internal angst of a pedophile stalking a young adolescent boy. Publish this now and the FBI will be watching your computer downloads. It was super disturbing.

The narrator was excellent- great attention to nuance, emotion, etc. An example of why audiobooks are a great way to absorb classic lit.

Just beware the subject matter- or you'll get halfway into this book and feel like I did: "Wait is this guy really getting obsessed with a 12 yr old boy? Oh wow this is happening... Oh this is disturbing..."